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I love good guys who look like they're bad guys.
One niche I think is severely underserved is like. A good guy who serves straight up classic villain aesthetics. Like someone who's refined, and cunning, always plotting something, and if the setting has superpowers, they got an 'evil' coded power... But their goals are those of a good guy. I don't think I've ever seen a character like that, unless you count Col. Mustang from the Fullmetal Alchemist anime/manga, who ticks at least a few of the boxes.
(If you know of OTHER characters who fit my description, PLEASE tell me)
Batman
Actually.
.... Yeah, pretty much. I hadn't thought of it, but... Yeah.
Or at least some batmen. Since every comic hero is really about sixty different characters.
You might enjoy the web novels Worm. The main protagonist is basically exactly the above, an antihero by necessity with an "evil" power. The book in general lends itself to grey morality, even for the heroes. The actual villains? Actual evil. The author likes to imagine unorthodox super powers and really makes the characters with them really sing.
Be warned though, it's a web novel that is literally something like "normal" 20 books long. Besides a rare lurch or two, it's also a surprisingly very good 20 novels.
HAH! My friends have been pushing Worm on me for years, and I've been sloooowly making my way through it (though good god that beginning part with all the bullying took me out of the story for 2 years)
BuuuuuuuUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut -- Taylor is more of an Antihero Classic. She'd fit right in with so many comic anti-heroes, even if her story is a lot darker due to not having to answer to executives like most comic antiheroes do. Her vibe is too -- Scrappy for what I was longing for. Though she does indeed have the evil superpower, and fights bad guys who are so much worse than her villain-gang friends. She's always desperately struggling for survival and figuring shit out as she goes along.
What I was fantasizing about is more like "what if Coil was the hero" (since you mentioned Worm...). Not 'the hero of his own story', not 'scheming and doing bad things for the right reasons' (which seems to be what the story is going for tbqh -- But when I fell off last time he was JUST ABOUT to have Taylor and the Undersiders killed), but straight up heroic... While maintaining all his "cultured mafia leader who is infallibly polite, but has a plan to kill everyone in secret, and gives off an aura of absolute control and confidence" vibe.
Villain Classic. But not a villain.
Glad to see you already picked it up. I read it in "one sitting" over the a couple of months at a slow job. The start was painful, but added really good context to her character.
I cant speak to a Coil like villain that isn't Coil in the books, but if you are were I think you are, there are many "cold blooded and amazing actions by an anti-hero, villain or hero with a plan" instances left in the book, many of them major plot points.
I cant say anymore without major spoilers, but if the above is your criteria, the books have some pleasant surprises for you if you finish them.
You may like Code: Geass then.
Have you checked out the whole “Noir” genre? Burnt out old schlubby heros who look like bad guys is a whole thing there. Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese Falcon, Terriers for a more modern take.
I haven't, but I will now!
